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Published: December 16th 2006
Arrival in Ushuaia
Riding out of the airport on a clear cool afternoonHaving booked a last-minute cabin on an expedition ship to Antarctica over the internet, we had to get ourselves to Ushuaia in Argentinean Tierra del Fuego pronto. A quick visit to the airline office in Castro (capital of Chiloe) secured us two tickets from Puerto Montt to Ushuaia, arriving in time to explore the southern end of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego before embarking on our ship.
The name Tierra del Fuego (literally Land of Fire) comes from Ferdinand Magellan, who was the first European to pass it in 1520. He named this island after the many fires of the Amerindians, which were visible from the sea. He believed that the "Indians" were waiting in the forests to ambush his armada. They were, however, only using fire for heating and lighting. Charles Darwin called this area "the uttermost part of the earth" when he visited here on the
Beagle in the early 1830s.
Ushuaia is the capital of this province and one of the world's southernmost cities in a setting surrounded by mountains and overlooking the Beagle Channel. Landing in Ushuaia was quite exciting as the mountains surrounding the city are too steep to allow the aircraft to
Stunted lenga trees
Just under the treeline, the lengas grow are stunted and twisted along the ground. Lower down, they grow upright. descend when approaching from the north. We had to skim over the mountains to the north, passing directly over Ushuaia, then fly down and back over the Beagle Channel to lose height.
The first things we noticed on our first afternoon in Ushuaia was the bright clear cool air (about 9 degrees) and the fact that it doesn't get dark until about 10:30pm! This was great as it allowed us to sleep in late and still have a full day hiking and exploring. We rarely had our evening meal before 9pm.
We spent most of our week hiking up to the glaciers in the mountains behind the city and pottering around resting and preparing our gear for Antarctica. Our favourite museum in Ushuaia is dedicated to the four aboriginal peoples of this area, who arrived during the last ice age when main island of Tierra del Fuego was still connected to the continent. When Europeans arrived on the island in the mid 1800s, they brought with them diseases such as measles and smallpox that the Fuegians had no immunity to. This and intensive sealing by the Europeans decimated the Fuegian population, the sealing because the Indigenous people used
More stunted trees
Very Middle Earth! seals for food and fuel, as well as for warmth. (Seal fat on their bodies made the frequent rain run off, whereas wet clothing would make their bodies cold and unable to dry.) Their numbers were reduced from several thousand in the 1800s to several hundred in the 1900s. Today, native Fuegians number in the single digits. The amazing thing about these people was that they hardly wore any clothes and it's very cold here!
Having secured somewhere safe to store our bikes for a couple of weeks, we packed our bags and boarded the good ship
Akademik Shokalskiy for our trip to Antarctica!
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barbara levick
non-member comment
Where will you go next ?
All this exploring ! where will you two go next ? Your journey is really remarkable, and you make it come alive to us poor beings who can only hold our breath until the next travelblog comes. Good luck to you on your next adventure, have a good Christmas- wherever you may be Mum XXX